1939-01-22 [P ]

PART FIVE—AMUSEMENT SECTION • ® THEATERS—RADIO .V*“7 l\A Sftt'WfYw'tt BOOKS —ART MUSIC JUNIOR PAGE EIGHT PAGES. WASHINGTON, D. C., JANUARY 22, 1939. Jack Warner Song of ‘Set to Music’ Ends Artist Finds Says There’ll But Some Sad Melody A Refuge on Be Changes Wails in Critics’ Ears Broadway Studio Head Tells Noel Coward’s Erwin Piscator, Of Plans for Bright Claptrap Brings Complaints That Late of Germany, Coming Year Directs Here He Writes Claptrap By Sheilah Graham. By Mark Barron, HOLLYWOOD. Cartnody. , By Jay Associated Press Stall Writer. Paging Priscilla Lane! You are If events went as scheduled Mr. Noel Coward Is off (off yesterday, NEW YORK. the best bet for stardom in the on another one of those round-the-world which he for jaunts, prescribes Amid the crews of for- Warner Bros.’ studio. This news flourishing himself when he feels humility slipping away from him. There are per- and direc- comes straight from the boss' mouth eign actors, playwrights sons of course who think that if Mr. Coward travels for deflation pur- tors who are across the —i. e., Jack Warner, with whom I moving poses he would have worn a path around the world by this time. The Broadway scene this season, there lunched to extract this and equally observation is for it is the intention to mention are several arrived of Important items of information. irrelevant, however, merely newly refugees here that no where Mr. Coward or how he distinction fleeing from the troubled And here is something to cheer the matter goes, long may stay, soul of Olivia De Havilland. Mr. echoes of his "Set to Music" seem likely to haunt critics who dared to European stages. Some of these have moved on to Warner promises that she will leave like it. Even now the air* is fairly filled with what their authors call, Hollywood. Others like the exiled the ingenue class she dislikes so too modestly it seems, "minority reports." The real minority reports ap- Berlin stage director, Erwin Piscator, much and go on to bigger and better parently are the superlative saturated comments of professional critics are staying on Broadway and the things. (A good start, is her Melanie of and New York. Boston, Washington influence of some like him already in “Gone With the Wind.'') ^role Mr. Coward, it seems, made a many paying customers desperately is being felt in forthcoming pro- As for Ann Sheridan, she is def- great • with his nonsense. From the expression on his face as ductions. initely in line for parts that will unhappy frothy at the Piscator's first task here is to stage exceed the she receives. this correspondent sat beside him one night National, he made publicity for Gilbert Miller a dramatization (Miss Sheridan is a himself most desperately unhappy of all. At the time, his tormented publicity gc- of Tolstoi's "War and Peace,” a pro- tress—i. e.. one who receives lots of expression was diagnosed as an artist's anguish in tryout time. His duction which will begin as soon as ballyhoo but no roles worth men- must have been a kind of ecstacy as compared to that of pain, however, a leading man is found. The man All tioning.) that will be changed— one articulate customer who wrote a three-page form letter to the local they would like is Paul Muni. on Jack Warner's word of honor. critics revealing to them the twin secret of their dumbness and sycho- In compressing this marathon But here is less something pleas- phancy. The letter bore five different signatures, all of them suspect, novel into the limited time of a ing for Marie Wilson, who was sup- probably on the theory that a wrath like that was too acute for any one theatrical evening Piscator plans to posed to jump to stardom after a The movies are too. use some of the technique he de- Meets Girl.” to suffer under single name. colossal, “Boy She won’t. And vised when he staged the whole for the sad reason "To come to the says the author after two reasonably that, according bluntly point,” panorama of the prosperity before to her is too " to was critcal • employer, she much of extensive paragraphs, ‘Set Music’ by any self-respecting the depression in his play, "Business a type. It seems the?e isn't any standards superficial claptrap. Its humor was shallow and spurious for the Boom,” in 1930. market for the dumb roles blond reason that it set out to do a significant and trenchant in simple ttyrig me play opened on an empty portrayed so excellently by Miss a shallow and spurious way.” and as the scenes Wilson. (Take mv advice. Marie— sfage progressed That is debatable, in part. Even a Coward admirer will not quarrel a bustling, rich city was built before dye your hair black and drop the with the fact that Mr. Coward writes superficially and that the result the eyes of the audience. Then dumb masquerade.) called His defenders can that came foreign traders to win business Here, in the order named, is Mr. might legitimtely be claptrap. merely say room from this new and prosperous city, Warner's list of his 10 best pictures it is the very finest kind of claptrap, that there is in the entertain- and when that trade was built up for 1938: “Four Daughters,” “Robin ment field for such material, and that it never has been marketed under then came dictators to destroy all Hood,” “Jezebel.” "Angels With a false trademark. It is the second part of the observation which we that had been built. It was about Faces.” “Dawn Patrol," "Dr. that one ever set out to do a Dirty don't believe at all. We don’t believe any that time that the road to exile Clitterhouse.” “Slight Case of Mur- a and not "significant and trenchant thing in shallow spurious way.” No. began to loom before Piscator and “The “Brother Rat” Here's the face that launched a thousand, and a thousand To insure that the der,” Sisters.” even Mr. who is a whimsical with a fine talent for mocking additionally President’s Birthday Ball, times a Coward, chap he fled to Austria Just as he has and “Crime School.” The award for thousand shouts—some joy and some of purest anguish. a week from tomorrow night, will be a success, the Warner Bros, It’s Vivien the British conventional methods of approach. fled now to Broadway. the best performance among his Leigh, lass who certainly is going to play studio is sending along one of its top box-office stars, Errol Scarlett O'Hara in Evelyn S., Gertrude M. and the other three persolis the writer was Piscator, like many of the modern players he gives to Bette Davis for “Gone With the Wind.” Flynn. fair when accuse this directors, infuses his productions “Jezebel.” feeling like, are not playing quite they department of “Set to Music." more with comment on current problems. Unlike a certain we of a completely unqualified approval Coming producer could In Middle Europe he staged “The mention—but won’t—Mr. Warner to the point, by but one paragraph but still more bluntly than bluntly Merchant of Venice” in this manner some to _ makes no pretense of placing art Scarlett’s Formal they did. we did say: "It probably is kind of dirty ingratitude Now Debut bnglish —Shvlock was modernized into a first and foremost in his with more but a Playwrights produc- suggest that Mr. Coward has written glitter, misgiving Polish Jew who comes to Berlin as tions. or two on that score does manage to crowd its way in between the laughs. a salesman of munitions to the “Art itself in is a lot • » by pictures Proves to Be an Ordeal • And, with Miss Lillie to polish up any dullness, you can be sure Have Words to Soothe Us Nazis. The Nazis win with these of bunk,” he says frankly. "The there is nothing seriously wrong with ‘Set to Music.’ arms, but Piscator got into trouble first aim should be entertainment, with the Nazis because he was trying **then art—and then education." Mr. Vivien and the That opinion is unchanged. It was based primarily upon the Leigh Others Face Dodie Smith and Oscar Wilde on to show in this production a com- Warner has done more than his that Mr. Coward was a kind of coutourier cutting assumption merely ment upon the change then taking share A at an Affair Miss Lillie. We think he did an of the latter with “Pasteur,” Barrage a show to the measurements of Broadway Again to Say place in Germany. “The Life of Emile Zola” and his excellent sort of thing, and in doing so we were sitting there in the “I wanted to show the change in current “Juarez.” Paul That Is Anticlimactic There’ starring National reacting without any reference to what the New York critics ‘There, Germany from 1918 until 1929.” he Muni, Bette Davis and John Gar- subsequently might say. (We won't guess how many beans there are said. “There was no anti-Semitic field. According to Mr. Warner. W. Churchill. Ira then. I was By Douglas in a jar, either.) By Wolfert. feeling really making “Juarez” will duplicate conditions of HOLLYWOOD. NEW YORK. ‘The Merchant of Venice’ a com- In picking up the critical cliches to tell the critics of her, or his, today. During the unhappy and The other evening on a brightly lighted stage at Selznick-International English playwrights—and that, this week, includes Dodie Smith and parison with the present-day situa- contempt for them, the author of the letter (who echoed brief reign of Maximilian and Car- formal announcement of the casting of Scarlett O'Hara was made to the expansive Oscar Wilde—seem to have learned their art at their mothers' knees.

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